The description of the crime is appropriate: Kelly Thomas
was murdered by a thugscrum of at least six police officers on a sidewalk in
Fullerton. Kelly, who had a criminal record, was a homeless adult who had been diagnosed with schizophrenia. On the evening of July 5, police were called to a
street near the Fullerton bus depot by a report that someone was burglarizing
parked cars.

Kelly was identified as a suspect, and was uncooperative
with the police. He was tasered at least five times and beaten until brain-dead
while pleading with the officers and crying out for his father. Multiple
eyewitness accounts have disclosed that the beating continued – punctuated by
the familiar demand that the victim “stop resisting!” -- long after Kelly was
on his back, motionless and defenseless.

That this was a gang-involved murder is indisputable. With
all proper respect to Ron Thomas, however, the grieving father is desperately
wrong about one detail: The murderers were not “rogue officers.” Once the gang
assault on Kelly began, practically the only thing that could have saved his life would have been the timely intervention of a rogue officer.

As an institution, the police do not exist to defend life,
liberty, and property. That would be the role played by peace officers -- a population that is, for all intents and purposes, extinct. Police
are given the task of “enforcement” – the imposition of rules devised by, and
on behalf of, the wealth-devouring class. That role includes dispensing summary
punishment against people who display anything other than instant, unqualified
submission to them and to the political order they embody. Any material good
that is done by a police officer is a renegade act, given the nature and
purposes of the institution that employs him.

Ron Thomas – who, once again, is a retired law enforcement
officer himself who teaches “arrest and control” techniques – explains that the
officers who murdered his son weren’t attempting to arrest him as a criminal
suspect, but rather “bullying” him “under color of authority” as punishment for
“contempt of cop.”

Incidents of this kind display a standard morphology:

A cop confronts a citizen and encounters brief, trivial, and
often justified resistance. He summons “backup,” and a thugscrum – which is a phenomenon
similar to a criminal “flash mob,” but generally more lethal – quickly coalesces and deals out hideous violence while terrified citizens look on in
horror and apparent helplessness.

Any officer who doesn’t play a hands-on role
in beating the “suspect” will devote his attention to “crowd control” – that
is, preventing intervention on behalf of the victim, and often confiscating any
recording devices that might be used to gather incriminating video of the
episode.

Officially sanctioned gang violence
depends on a chain reaction of conformity, and often a single rogue element
would be sufficient to prevent it from reaching critical mass. A “rogue cop” –
that is, a peace officer devoted to protecting life, liberty, and property, rather
than a dutiful law enforcer determined to uphold “authority” – would interpose
on behalf of the victim.

It’s difficult to know how often this happens, but we could
round off that estimate to “never.” This is because “rogue” cops who commit such
renegade acts of lawfulness are never treated with the union-organized
solicitude displayed toward “good” cops who commit acts of criminal violence
against Mundanes.

Witness the case of former Austin Police Department Officer
Ramon Perez, who joined the force as a 41-year-old rookie cop because of a
sincere desire to protect people from crime. During a January 2005 domestic
violence incident, Perez refused an order by a superior officer, Robert
Paranich, to use his Taser on an elderly man who was not a threat to himself or
anybody else.

Owing to the fact that the subject was a frail man of
advanced years, Perez was understandably concerned that the portable
electro-shock torture device would kill him. Furthermore, using the Taser in
that situation would have violated the explicit provisions of the Austin PD’s
Taser Policy. Perez was able to resolve the situation through de-escalation,
rather than by using potentially lethal force to “impose authority.”

Two days later, Perez was given what could only be
considered a punitive transfer to the night shift. Two months later, following
a second incident in which Perez chose de-escalation over armed compulsion, he
was invited to what he was told would be a “counseling” session with the APD’s
staff psychologist, Carol Logan. The purpose of that meeting, Perez was told,
was to help him develop better “communication skills” with his fellow officers.
In fact, it was a disguised “fit-for-duty review” convened to find a pretext to
purge the probationary officer from the force before the “rogue cop” could
infect others with his respect for individual rights.

As the Austin
Chronicle reported, Ms.
Logan’s four-page report focused “entirely on Perez's moral and religious
beliefs, which Logan concludes are so strong they are an `impairment' to his
ability to be a police officer.”

Perez, a self-described non-denominational
fundamentalist Christian, an ordained minister, and home-schooling parent, was
not as morally ductile as the typical police recruit. He saw protection of
civil liberties as the paramount duty of a police officer, an obligation he
viewed as a literal religious vocation. For this reason Perez was seen as
unsuitable for a ministry in the State’s punitive priesthood.

Perez was given an ultimatum by his superiors: He could
resign and retain his peace officer’s license, or be terminated and lose it.
This was done, once again, as punishment for Perez’s “rogue” conduct – which
consisted of his refusal to break the law and violate department policy.

After the vehicles pulled over, agent McCue came boiling out
of his car with a drawn gun. With help from one of his fellow heroes, McCue forced
Bowling lie face-down on the pavement, despite the fact that the 98 degree heat
had turned it into a frying pan. When Bowling attempted to push himself up,
McCue began to punch and pistol-whip him while taunting his victim for
supposedly being an “inbred hillbilly” and “system-dodging white trash.” One
witness to the crime reported that McCue threatened to murder Bowling. With the
help of his comrades, McCue handcuffed the victim and continued to beat and
kick him after he was shackled and completely helpless.

In keeping with standard procedure, the assailants accused
the victim of assaulting them, which would explain why the unarmed and
outnumbered “aggressor” was left with severe brain damage, persistent tinnitus,
incapacitating migraines, chronic dizziness, nausea, and lingering emotional
trauma that led to at least one suicide attempt.

While in police custody, Bowling was
told by Officer Robert Lane that the facts of the case didn’t matter; he
was the one going to prison because federal agents “do pretty much what they want.”
Bowling’s only hope to avoid prison was Detective Max Seifert, who was assigned
to investigate the case – which, in practice, meant to fill out whatever
paperwork was necessary to ratify McCune’s perjury.

For reasons that mystified his colleagues, Seifert actually
conducted an investigation. His first question was: What happened to the
witness reports collected at the scene? Officer Lane told him that those
documents had been “lost,” because they served only to make the DEA agents “look
bad.”

Seifert’s persistence led Deputy Chief Steven Culp chief to
take him aside and order the detective to drop the matter. At the time, Seifert
– who had been respected by both his fellow cops and the public at large – was less
than a year from being “fully vested,” meaning that he could retire with his
full pension. The leverage provided by that fact provided the tacit but
unmistakable “or else” that hovered above the conversation between Seifert and Culp.

To his considerable credit, Seifert continued with his investigation.
After Seifert filed his report, the district attorney announced that he was
dropping the charges against Bowling. Deputy Chief Culp, however, pressured the
prosecutor into reinstating the case. Seifert went on the testify on behalf of
the defense in Bowling’s criminal trial – which resulted in an acquittal on the
spurious assault-related charges – and on behalf of the victim in his federal
civil rights lawsuit.

For his insistence on telling the truth, Seifert was
subjected to a campaign of ridicule and abuse from his colleagues on the police
force. As U.S. District Judge Julie A. Robinson pointed out in a ruling that
awarded Bowling more than $833,000 in damages, "Seifert was shunned,
subjected to gossip and defamation by his police colleagues, and treated as a
pariah.” More importantly, he was punished for insubordination by being forced
into early retirement, thereby losing his pension.

None of the law enforcement officers involved in the assault
on Bowling and subsequent cover-up was disciplined in any way. The
only one who was punished was the “rogue” officer who had acted in defense
of the truth, and of the victim's individual rights. Steven Culp, the official who ordered Seifert to
participate in the cover-up and then purged him when he refused to do so, is
now the Executive Director of
the Kansas Commission on Peace Officers’ Standards and Training. Without so
much as a faint whisper of irony, Culp claims that his new job is “to provide
the citizens with qualified, trained, ethical, and professional peace officers”
who act “in a manner consistent with the law while being considerate of the
citizens….”

Residents of the Sunflower State can be confident that
Steven Culp -- like those in charge of recruiting and indoctrinating police officers elsewhere in the Soyuz -- will do his formidable best to protect them from “rogue cops” like Max
Seifert.

33 comments:

Perez, a self-described non-denominational fundamentalist Christian, an ordained minister, and home-schooling parent, was not as morally ductile as the typical police recruit. He saw protection of civil liberties as the paramount duty of a police officer, an obligation he viewed as a literal religious vocation. For this reason Perez was seen as unsuitable for a ministry in the State’s punitive priesthood.

I'm sure Mr. Perez also "home churches" as well. Based on my own experience, I cannot imagine that there exists a single evangelical congregation anywhere in Amerika today that would treat him with anything other than unbridled contempt for his views on "law enforcement" and would probably excommunicate him for them. (I'd be willing to bet too that a human being as obviously decent as Perez also "hates the troops" and doesn't see the illegal, immoral, murderous, unconstitutional wars they wage as "God's wars.")

The laws in this case are clear and the police officers in question are in clear violation of them.

The problem is that there is no good standard by which police officers can be charged and prosecuted for their crimes against the people they protect.

Except for blogs like this one of course. But they only serve to inform.

As you can see, however, there are decent police officers out there who will fully investigate criminal acts, even ones committed by other cops, or handle situations with a level head. Unfortunately, they appear to be the exception, not the rule.

What we have here is genetic pure tribal human behavoir which is usually very surprising. Check out Stanley Milgram or the Stanford Experiment. This gang/tribal behavoir is widespread including lawyers, doctors, and engineers in the right environment. For example environmental engineering is making up lies for money. There are no honest environmental engineers because they would be broke and shunned by their lying colleagues. This allows pollution like aquifer contamination from landfills and coal bed fracking.

The Kelly Thomas murder is without a doubt the most shocking incidence of police murder I can recall. This wasn't a quick pull of the trigger by one officer in the heat of passion. This was a vicious and sadistic beating by six different officers that lasted by one account for over ten minutes. There was so much blood spurting everywhere that one of the officers didn't even want to handcuff the victim, lest he dirty himself with Kelly Thomas' blood. The cops were so brazen they didn't even feel the need to intimidate any of the dozens of eyewitnesses. Most of the 6 officers involved in the murder are still patrolling the streets of Fullerton, and the case is being looked into by a DA investigator who just happens to be a good friend of the Fullerton police chief.

On the plus side, the Fullerton Police Department is now complaining that their officers are suffering from 'low morale' because the people of Fullerton now view them as they are - a brutal murdering army of occupation. And the identity, phone number, and home address of the main perpetrator have entered the public domain. Hopefully he will see some street justice real soon.

For more, see http://www.fullertonsfuture.org/tag/kelly-thomas-beating/

I just caught this video over on another site before coming over here. I was just thinking to myself "You know... Will should do a piece on this horrendous act". Sure enough you have. It's criminal and the fact that the cops have "low morale", as stated above, means little to me. I suggest they resign as a decent human should. That they're suffering from low self-esteem after being outed as killers is absurd. I constantly hear the refrain "We're slipping into a police state" when in fact we've long been there. It's only to the degree in which various environs have sunk that rises to our attention.

I can assure you that if an act such as this is ever perpetrated on a member of my family or within my sight, I will not rest until I have hunted down every person involved and subjected them to summary execution. Only when every law enforcement officer lives each day in mortal fear will this conduct stop. It's a very simple message: behave or die.

Not sure what "liberranter" is snorting... but it's some hate filled stuff. Sorry that his "experience" with evangelical congregation in Amerika was so bad. I'm assuming that liberranter home-churches himself. GOOD. Stay there!

A few years ago I described my own frustrations, and those of my family, in seeking for a congregation that worships the Prince of Peace, rather than the Regime -- http://freedominourtime.blogspot.com/2006/12/from-fissure-to-chasm.html

Swiftfox comments, "...The problem is that there is no good standard by which police officers can be charged and prosecuted for their crimes against the people they protect..."But that is not true... the standard they are held to is the same one we 'citizens' are held to, with exception they should be held more rigidly to its tenets, and we J&JQP should insure this. To think otherwise is to be giving them a free pass, almost as if saying, 'They are unruled,' when they are actually unruly, disobediant and recalcitrant children in dire need of a belt across their ass, not some liberal 'time out' to think about what they did.Were this to happen to my son, I'd not hesitate to fully illustrate what rogue and renegade really mean- consequences to me be damned, let God sort out the right and wrong of it.Sadly, this is not only becoming more common, it's going to become more common still until J&JQP bow to their knees and kiss the ring held before them or grovel at the feet.

Anon 7:58, I'd like to thank you for demonstrating, for the benefit of the readers of this blog who have never experienced it, the mentality and attitude typical of those who worship in the sanctuaries of the Great National Religion and yet still insist on calling themselves Christ followers. I never cease to be amazed and saddened, though am not at all surprised, at the complete intellectual and spiritual bankruptcy of such people, one that manifests itself most clearly in the brain-stem reaction to well-justified criticism of the perversion of Christ's message as "hatred" or "discord." But one cannot expect anything else of people who are Amerikan Nationalists first and foremost and "Christians" a very distant and grudging second...or third... or fourth...

As to your admonition that I continue to "home church," I will indeed continue to do so and to encourage others to do the same. I would consider doing nothing else, given the openly hostile attitude that is typical of you and your fellow institutional evangelicals toward those who strive to put the Word of Christ and individual liberty above the word of the temporal state. That will of course not prevent me from praying fervently that you and your fellow congregants will one day see the light and repent.

Will: I'm assuming that you're still "home churching" as well? If, since you wrote that article, you've found a congregation that actually worships the Prince of Peace, then congratulations and praise the Lord! I hope they're in the church planting business. We need that seed to spread far and wide.

Liberranter has a strong distrust of organized religions in general and sometimes it seems Mormons in particular. As a Mormon this used to offend me and we have had a spat or two on this page in the past. However, I am no longer offended by his comments as I have grown to understand that they are not pointed at me in particular but at the propensity for all organized religions to have an unhealthy and most un-Christlike adoration for the State. I have witnessed this among the people in my own religion and am dismayed by the religion of sheep most of us have become. I am no sheep. I have been asked if I would consider myself a III percenter. My responce is usually "no, I'm the I percent that's going to give the III percent a bad name to the enemy.

I'm with Bob--it's time for the people to take back their neighborhoods and protect themselves from the organized thugs of officialdom. We have a police problem in this country, and no governmental unit is stepping in; it's time for the people to do so in a way that makes their feelings entirely clear.

Media reports say that Thomas was stopped because "police were called to a street near the Fullerton bus depot by a report that someone was burglarizing parked cars." Yet, it's very unlikely that Thomas was breaking into cars. Maybe the cops just made up the 911 burglary call to justify their targeting a homeless guy for harassment. If suit is filed, the 911 report should be subpoenaed. And if there was no actual 911 call, this will prove murder. My guess is that a pretrial settlement will be reached with the family to avoid discovery. Most citizens will simply presume the city settled because it's "only" taxpayer dollars at stake. More likely, though, the truth about the evil that is government is at stake, not just money.

Anon, I'm sorry about the problem with the archive. LNR decided to discontinue the archives this week, and I'm going to have to make the program available on another platform. I'll make sure to let you know when its ready. Sorry about that, my friend.

My heart aches for what happened to Kelly Thomas. I won't write what I'm thinking about the cops.

Speaking of Kansas: Cops are whining, post sting, about their rights being violated, having to sit for hours in their uncomfy tactical get-ups and crying foul over S&S violations. I guess it's no fun for police officers to be treated almost like regular guys by other police officers.

Hmp, after forty plus years of American living I just saw an old version of the film Davey Crockett for the first time.

Imho, a good approximation of today's version of Davey Crockett is Will Grigg... among a few others,... I say that because when I watched this version of Davey Crockett the Alamo looked like a little house being over-run by a SWAT team, and that's exactly what the Alamo was, a little house on the prairie, a.k.a. America.

Who among us defends the American little house these days with words or ? Their numbers are few. Of those who do defend the American little house these days they are being over-run by goberment gone wild or are threatened by Empire, an Empire no different than Santa Anna's.

The ending of the film was:

Liberty and Independence forever!

Fighting for liberty.

It seems as if those ideals are alien according to the mainstream media (and most People!) that's what I gather anyway. I wouldn't be surprised to see the nations TV news anchors call liberty and Independence criminal activity.

Don't they already do so in an offhand way?

It also seems as if most People wouldn't support the Alamo today, they'd ask why didn't the Alamo submit to the TSA grope and just obey already?

Will Grigg fights for liberty, few stand with him,... it's the Alamo all over again only this time it doesn't seem like the rest of the People stand with him or are ready to rush to support him,... or do they?

That Is the question.

In the meantime, “contempt of cop” shall continue without commercial interruption and the People go, "Rah-Rah-Rah-go-team-go!"

And the more I think about it, Davey Crockett said, the heck with all this! and moved to Texas,... do you suppose Chile is the modern day Chile?

There is a passage in the Bible which Lila R. has mentioned before, something about wells being fought over and moving on to another instead of fighting over it... This thought pops up from time to time for me.

"...The underlying problem is that the security forces in Russia are structured to safeguard the social order rather than to protect and serve citizens,...

“We can find many motivated people with high skills in the Russian police,” he said, “but the system makes it difficult even for these good police officers to do their jobs well. Their main burden is to control situations and to control the people rather than to help them.”..."

Maybe this isn't related to this latest in excellent posts from Will, but, with the continuing economic meltdown (the recent downgrading of Amerika's credit rating), and with what might be the potential for unrest here, will we see an outright (and unconstitutional) standing military on our streets and in our neighborhoods?

The corrupt enforcement officers should be tried for murder or man slaughter. The police are meant to protect and serve even those who under arrest. I wish the group of people would of stood up to those cops and stopped them before they killed that man. It would of been worth going to jail to save a life wouldn't it?

Anyways recording the event is just as important. The tools of recording is our defense against tyranny.

This isn't the only way police brutalize people. They do it for traffic stops.

I was stopped on Sunday. He ran the tags in the parking lot where I live. I didn't think anything about him being in my lot as there was an ambulance attending to one of my neighbors. I went into my house and came out about 5 minutes later and got in my car. He drove off, waited for me to exit my complex, followed me for 2 miles, pulled me over.

See, I'm a disabled 49 year old law abiding woman, I'm a detriment to society - my registration was expired. I was so nervous, I couldn't find my insurance card. So Mr. BullyInBlue issued me a ticket for my registration and said "I know your car is insured, but here is a ticket anyway. Now exit your vehicle, I'm having it impounded." Impounding my car cost $200. I have no money for the tickets so I'll probably get arrested. I have no money left for the next month for food, my doctor appointments and my meds. But because I committed such a horrible crime my township is going to be much richer. $200 for impounding my vehicle, $108 for the 2 tickets. Then the fee for getting my dogs their licenses will be doubled because I won't have the funds to pay for that either. This police officer should be commended for harassing an innocent disabled person.

There was no need for this, he saw me come back out to my vehicle, he could have ticketed me right there in the parking lot.

Now, the rash I get on my legs from a nervous condition (which was almost finally under control) has spread across my entire body, I have had nightmares every time I try to lay down to sleep.

He should be very proud of himself. When I asked why he didn't just tell me in my parking lot and did it the way he did, his response was "Because I can."

They can do whatever they want to whoever they want. I live in a crime riddled area, if all the police have time for is to harass law abiding citizens then there are too many police on the force.